Top Ten Corporate Buzzwords That Make Programmers Cringe

We could spend all day writing about corporate buzzwords. There is no shortage, and every team seems to invent new ones weekly.

Most people are not trying to be annoying. They want to sound measured and professional. The problem is that these phrases carry almost no information. They obscure specifics and blur who is responsible for what.

Songs have been written about this (see Weird Al Yankovic’s “Mission Statement” and “Cliche Bingo”).

Here are ten of the worst offenders, ranked by pomposity.

Synergy

Pomposity score: 9/10

What they say: “There’s real synergy potential if we merge the platform and infrastructure teams.”

What they mean: “We are cutting headcount but want it to sound strategic.”

Why it’s awful: It is a placeholder for an actual claim. Synergy of what? Fewer handoffs? Shared on-call? Less duplicated code? Name the mechanism. “Synergy” shows up when nobody wants to name the cost.

What to say instead: Name the actual benefit. Fewer handoffs? Shared on-call? Less duplicated code? Say that.

Physicality

Pomposity score: 9/10

What they say: “I want to explore the physicality of this interaction.”

What they mean: Unknown. It sounds meaningful. It is not.

Why it’s awful: This word escaped from sports commentary and wandered into product meetings. In tech, it usually replaces real words like “responsiveness,” “animation,” “haptics,” or “latency.” If you want the swipe to feel better, say what to change: easing, duration, input delay, or layout jank.

What to say instead: Name what feels wrong and what to change. Easing? Duration? Input delay?

Pomposity score: 8/10

What they say: “We’re seeing strong demand in a few trending verticals.”

What they mean: “We want to chase whatever sounds hot and call it strategy.”

Why it’s awful: It avoids every useful detail. Which industries? What evidence? What are you doing differently? If you mean “healthcare is growing and we should build features for it,” say that. If you have no idea what to do next, say that too.

What to say instead: Name the industry, name the evidence, name the action.

Performant

Pomposity score: 8/10

What they say: “The new caching layer makes the API significantly more performant.”

What they mean: “It’s faster now.”

Why it’s awful: “Performant” is vague without a metric. Faster for which endpoint? At which percentile? Under what load? “Latency dropped from 400ms to 180ms at p95” is less fancy, but it means something.

What to say instead: Cite the metric that improved and by how much.

Move the Needle

Pomposity score: 7/10

What they say: “Will this actually move the needle?”

What they mean: “Show me a graph where a line goes up.”

Why it’s awful: It reduces all work to metrics. Sometimes the most important work does not show up in dashboards. If you mean “which number changes, and by how much,” say that and name the number.

What to say instead: Name the metric you care about.

Ownership

Pomposity score: 7/10

What they say: “We need stronger ownership here.”

What they mean: “Something is broken, nobody is accountable, and I do not want to name names.”

Why it’s awful: In programming, “ownership” has a precise meaning. It describes which part of a system controls a resource: who allocates it, who frees it, who is responsible when it breaks. Languages like Rust enforce ownership at compile time. Object-oriented design patterns formalize it.

Corporate jargon borrowed the word and stripped it of precision. “We need more ownership” sounds concrete, but it almost never is. Ownership of what? A codebase, a customer segment, a decision, an on-call rotation? If you mean “Sam decides this and Priya is backup,” say that. If you mean “this keeps falling between teams,” name the boundary and fix it.

What to say instead: Name the person, name the responsibility, name the backup.

Actionable

Pomposity score: 6/10

What they say: “Is any of this actionable?”

What they mean: “Tell me what to do so I can skip the thinking.”

Why it’s awful: It implies that analysis, context, and nuance are filler you wade through to find the “actionable part.” It also avoids naming who should act and by when. If you want a recommendation, ask for one. If you want a decision, ask for that.

What to say instead: Ask for what you actually want. A recommendation? A decision? A next step?

Circle Back

Pomposity score: 6/10

What they say: “Great question. Let’s circle back after we digest the data.”

What they mean: “I don’t know the answer and I’m hoping you forget you asked.”

Why it’s awful: It defers without scheduling. If you intend to revisit something, say when and who is responsible. “I will have an answer by Friday” is boring, but it is real.

What to say instead: Commit to a date. If you don’t know, say that.

Takeaways

Pomposity score: 5/10

What they say: “What are the key takeaways from this quarter?”

What they mean: “Give me three bullet points I can repeat in my next meeting.”

Why it’s awful: It compresses nuance into soundbites. Context, tradeoffs, and constraints disappear. The 40-page report becomes three sentences, and everyone pretends the rest was packaging.

What to say instead: Ask what changed, what we learned, or what should be different next time.

Going Forward

Pomposity score: 4/10

What they say: “Going forward, all PRs require two approvals.”

What they mean: “Starting now.”

Why it’s awful: Delete it from any sentence and lose nothing. “All PRs require two approvals” is shorter, clearer, and harder to hide behind. The phrase exists to sound formal and to imply that whatever disaster prompted this policy is behind us.

What to say instead: Delete it. The sentence works without it.

Honorable Mentions

These didn’t make the top ten, but they deserve recognition.

Low-Hanging Fruit: “Let’s grab some low-hanging fruit before the rewrite.” Translation: “Let’s do the easy stuff first.” The problem is that the “easy wins” are rarely easy. Someone just hasn’t thought through the dependencies yet.

North Star: “Our North Star metric is monthly active users.” Translation: “This is the number we’ve decided to care about until it looks bad.” Astronomical metaphors don’t make your KPIs more inspiring. You’re not navigating by stars. You’re looking at a Looker dashboard.

Leverage: “Let’s leverage our existing infrastructure.” Translation: “Let’s use what we have.” Just say “use.”

Bandwidth: “I don’t have the bandwidth for this.” Translation: “I’m busy.” You are not a network interface. You have time or you don’t.

Deep Dive: “Let’s do a deep dive on the metrics.” Translation: “Let’s look at this more carefully.” Scuba metaphors don’t make analysis sound more rigorous.

Pivot: “We need to pivot.” Translation: “We’re changing direction because the last idea didn’t work.” Sometimes honest. Often a way to rebrand failure as strategy.

Unpack: “Let’s unpack that.” Translation: “Let’s talk about it more.” You are not a suitcase.

Learnings: “What are the key learnings?” Translation: “What did we learn?” The word “lessons” exists. So does “what we learned.”

Alignment: “Are we aligned on this?” Translation: “Do you agree?” If you want agreement, ask for it. If you want compliance, be honest about that too.

Double-Click: “Let’s double-click on that.” Translation: “Let’s talk about that more.” You are not a mouse. This is not a desktop icon.

30,000 Foot View: “Give me the 30,000 foot view.” Translation: “Summarize it.” Aviation altitude doesn’t make your summary request sound more executive.

High-Level Overview: “Can you give me a high-level overview?” Translation: “Explain it without details.” Often a way to skip the parts that matter. If you want a summary, say summary.

Marinade: “Let’s let this marinade for a bit.” Translation: “Let’s not decide yet.” Your proposal is not a steak. If you need time to think, say that.

Core Competencies: “What are our core competencies here?” Translation: “What are we good at?” A phrase that makes “strengths” sound like a slide deck.

Deliverable: “What’s the deliverable here?” Translation: “What are we making?” Used to make any output sound like a formal contract obligation.

A Quick Buzzword Translator

“Let us leverage our synergies to move the needle on our North Star metrics.”

You just threw up a little. Same.

Here is a longer example:

“Going forward, let’s circle back on the actionable takeaways from this quarter’s North Star review. We need to capture the low-hanging fruit to move the needle, and I’d love to explore the physicality of our synergies to make the platform more performant.”

Translation:

“Let’s meet again to discuss what we learned this quarter. We should do the easy stuff first. Also, I have no idea what I’m talking about but I’d like the website to be faster.”

What to Do

In Meetings

Play buzzword bingo (mentally)
Ask “what do you mean by that?”
Model clearer language yourself
Accept the reality and move on

In Your Own Communication

Simple words over jargon
Direct statements over hedging
Plain English over corporate dialect

Your colleagues will thank you.

When Writing

Before using a buzzword, ask:

Would a normal person understand this?
Is there a simpler word?
Am I adding meaning or just sounding corporate?

The Deeper Problem

Buzzwords often hide:

Unclear thinking
Lack of specifics
Unwillingness to commit
Nothing actually being said

Jargon is a warning sign. When someone cannot explain something simply, they may not understand it themselves.

The Point, In Plain English

Corporate buzzwords are annoying but unavoidable.

You cannot change the culture alone. You can choose to speak clearly yourself.

And you can definitely roll your eyes when someone suggests “circling back on the physicality of your North Star synergies.”